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1. RSA keys with a minimum size of 2048 bits must be used for all new certificates introduced into Federation metadata.
2. No certificates with keys less than 2048 bits will be allowed in Federation metadata after December 2012.
   • All participants must migrate old 1024-bit keys out of metadata and upgrade to 2048-bit keys by December 2012.
3. We recommend that participants submit a new certificate with a new 2048-bit key every 3 years.
4. Expired certificates will not be accepted for addition to one's into Federation metadata.
5. Expired certificates However, current certificates that do expire may be retained in the metadata at the discretion of the participant.
6. InCommon does not validate Subject information in self-signed certificates because this information is irrelevant to the federated security context. However, at its own discretion, InCommon will reject metadata submissions if that submission contains a certificate with fields that contain egregiously misrepresentated Subject information as decided by InCommon on a case by case basis. Generally, your subject information should express a somewhat reasonable relationship between the certificate and your organization.

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• If the certificate will be used for TLS/SSL server authentication (e.g., an IdP's SOAP endpoint), make sure your certificate's CN (or subjectAltName) value matches the intended hostname. This will maximize the chances that your implementation will work. This TLS/SSL configuration is left to your discretion and responsibility. InCommon highlights this point as one that may likely cause problems if not met.
• Shibboleth does not check expiration dates of certificates, but this practice often causes interoperability issues with other software, and with some older (generally now unsupported) versions of Apache used in the deployment of the Shibboleth IdP.
• If necessary, you may continue using an expired certificate. Shibboleth, when used with metadata of the form used by InCommon, does not enforce the expiration dates of certificates. However, other software often will check expiration dates; therefore, we recommend planning ahead and migrating to a self-signed certificate well ahead of your certificate's expiration date.
• For key management purposes, InCommon allows multiple certificates per end point endpoint at any time. You can log in to the site administration tool, select the a particular endpoint, then and choose the one or more certificates you want to associate with this that endpoint. This is helpful for migrating from one certificate to another during a finite period of time.
• However, bear Bear in mind that not every SAML implementation supports some SAML implementations do not support multiple keys properly and you may want to test this with any your non-Shibboleth partners. For example, EZProxy supports metadata, but is known to ignore additional keys beyond the first.
• For those using the Shibboleth SP, the self-signed certificate generated during installation of the software (or subsequently using the keygen shell/batch script) is generally suitable for use within the federation.

InCommon No Longer Issues Certificates (as of January 2010)

As stated above, we are moving the federation toward self-signed certificates in the metadata. As your InCommon certificates expire, you should:

1. Submit a self-signed certificate containing a 2048-bit key.
2. For key management and migration, InCommon allows multiple certificates per end point at any time. Select the new certificate from your list of submitted certs, while keeping the old certificate associated with the endpoint for as long as your transition process requires. Before doing so, you may need to verify that non-Shibboleth deployments you interact with will accept metadata containing multiple keys.

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Backgrounder: Security and Certificate Authorities

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